Ten years ago I came to North East India and visited the northern Naga tribes. They had only recently opened the land to outsiders. We needed four people and a guide to get a permit. Other than a couple groups of anthropologists we were the first tourists they had ever met. It was one of…
Many people are interested to hear my stories. I’m one of these lucky fellows who have had the pleasures of travel and the leisure for philosophy. I’ve spent about half of the past ten years in India following pilgrim routes and spiritual places; I didn’t intent to, that’s just the way it happened. I’ve spent…
Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m walking thru some known past or walking into some unknown future. The people I meet along the way all appear to me as dear old friends rather than people I’m meeting for the first time. I become familiar fast, I tell people what I want and expect it with…
I realized something the other day. For a man on a spiritual path, it was a solid realization like running into a wall. The realization came about thru practical analysis of my will and desire as well as thru acknowledging my fears. By mind and by impulse we want many things in life, but we…
Most of the other travellers I know have some purpose to their travels: musicians, photographers, artists, writers, and healers. They’re passionate about what they do, they’re driven and ambitious, they have purpose. I envy this sense of purpose, the creative process that drives people and affords them a love that is greater than them selves,…
What is it that causes so many people in their thirties to suddenly contract unhappiness. They look back on the whole of their life: their achievements, their relationships, their careers and their training and suddenly they decide that none of it is enough. Something vital is still missing. While they were building a life they…
November 2009 Varanasi, India In a cold guest house room beside the Ganges. Me and Joseph the Swede are wrapped in blankets, playing chess, smoking charas. “I can’t keep going on like this. broken heart after broken heart. it’s not fair to me or to them or to anyone that has to listen to me.”…
This morning, as I watched the clouds lifting ever so slowly from the mountaintops I began to pray: “Please God…. Dear Lord, please have mercy. Carry me gently across this bridge. Please give me the insight Grant me the…. Help me…. Please Lord, grant me thy grace.” And the moment I asked for grace the prayer changed; my whole…
Some men are born lead, others are born to follow, some few others, to tread a path that neither leads or follows. This is my path. I’ve met none others that are like it, but I suspect everyone feels this way. It seems like one of those truths of humanity to me, that each of…
Dear Friends, Our time together was brief, but in the space of moments we shared a comradery that is only possible between people whose paths are understood by each other. Within moments we became joined as brothers and sisters; they were beautiful moments as such moments always are. We spoke the loneliness of the road…
I made it to Bhuj in one piece. The bus trip wasn’t so bad: I slept. It was the ten hour train ride to go 250km that took my steam away. I’ve just come back to Bhuj after a week of hitching rides around this restricted border area (with a permit). I’ve walked too many…